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Atans1.wordpress.com, 20 Jan 2014
The proposed fund in turn reminded me that one Charles Chong in the early noughtie said the needy should be made to lose their dignity to get $50 help vouchers.
This is what I posted in 2011

I hear Charles Chong will speak in parliament tomorrow. Doubtless he will talk about helping the needy*. It’s the in- thing in the PAP to want to help the needy. (This is of progress of sorts. Only recently, Lily Neo was berated and sneered at by VivianB for asking for more help for the poor. When that happened, I tot of Oliver Twist asking for more food and being beaten for his pains.)But I would like to ask Charles Chong, “Must a needy S’porean still lose his dignity for a $30 voucher?”.
Let me explain the background by winding the watch back some years.
In the early noughties, when S’pore was in a recession or recovering from one, one Charles Chong said, “We shouldn’t…be telling everyone that there’s this help available. It’s quite a process to go through to get the vouchers. A person with dignity won’t do it unless he’s in genuine trouble.” Charles Chong was explaining his (and some other PAP MPs’) reluctance to distribute free electricity vouchers on the ground that giving these to the needy would create a culture of dependence.